1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to graphene-based composite structures and method for making the graphene-based composite structures.
2. Description of Related Art
Graphene, a one-atom-thick carbon sheet, has peculiar band structure and other outstanding physical properties, which makes graphene an appealing material for both fundamental studies and modern technological applications. Due to the two-dimensional nature of graphene, however, a substrate is required for most practical applications.
Silicon carbide (SiC) substrate is a commonly used substrates compatible with graphene. The graphene/SiC composite structure is considered as a strongly-bound system due to the formation of C—Si bonds between the carbon lattice and SiC substrate. However, the C—Si bonds leads to a heightened corrugation of the graphene, which makes the graphene lose its Dirac cone.
Some related art has tried to recover the Dirac cone of the graphene by decoupling strong interaction between the carbon lattice and SiC substrate. Saturated modification of the surface of the SiC substrate through light elements (such as hydrogen, helium and lithium) doping is one effective way. These kinds of doped graphene/SiC composite structures can preserve the Dirac cone of graphene, which means excellent electronic properties. However, the graphene and SiC substrate are combined via van der Waals force therebetween in these kinds of doped graphene/SiC composite structures. Thus, the thermal and mechanical stabilities of the composite structures are relatively low and the vast applications of the composite structures are highly restricted.
What is needed, therefore, is to provide a graphene-based composite structure and a method for making the same. The graphene-based composite structure preserves Dirac cone structure whilst exhibits strong interaction between the graphene and substrate.